KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Coral reefs in To­ba­go are un­der threat af­ter ex­pe­ri­enc­ing their fourth con­sec­u­tive year of coral bleach­ing.

The Na­tion­al Ocean­ic and At­mos­pher­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion (NOAA) Coral Reef Watch has placed most of the Caribbean on Coral Reef Bleach­ing Alert. T&T is un­der a Lev­el 2 alert for the next three months for wide­spread bleach­ing and mor­tal­i­ty.

The alert comes as corals in Flori­da are be­ing bleached at alarm­ing rates as a re­sult of this year’s his­toric heat­waves and ris­ing sea tem­per­a­tures.

Above av­er­age sea tem­per­a­tures are be­ing record­ed in T&T and the wider Caribbean ac­cord­ing to Dr An­janie Ganase, Coral Reef Ecol­o­gist at the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs (IMA).

“The IMA was out in the field for our an­nu­al mon­i­tor­ing over the last cou­ple weeks and the wa­ters have been ex­cep­tion­al­ly warm,” she said. “We’ve clocked tem­per­a­tures around 31 de­grees at some reef sites, at least two de­grees above what is typ­i­cal for this time of year. We have asked our stake­hold­ers to re­port any signs of bleach­ing to us.”

Dr Ganase added: “We will be pro­mot­ing this re­minder over the next month or so. We will be back in To­ba­go in the be­gin­ning of Sep­tem­ber and will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor and will like­ly do a bleach­ing as­sess­ment in Oc­to­ber/No­vem­ber.”

In 2022, the IMA team ob­served pale and par­tial­ly bleached corals in Char­lot­teville, north­east To­ba­go. Re­ports of coral bleach­ing were re­ceived from reefs in south­west To­ba­go, in­clud­ing Buc­coo Reef, Store Bay Reef, Fly­ing Reef and Mt Irvine Reef. Sev­er­al species, in­clud­ing brain, moun­tain­ous star, staghorn, fire and even soft corals were af­fect­ed.

In Trinidad at Saline, Saly­bia Bay, bleached coral frag­ments have been re­port­ed.

In 2005, ma­rine sci­en­tist Dr Stan­ton Belford be­gan map­ping and re­search­ing Trinidad’s corals with Dr Dawn Phillip of the UWI.

“I’m not sure if these frag­ments came from fin­ger coral colonies fur­ther out at the reef crest, where scu­ba is need­ed for fur­ther in­ves­ti­gate,” he said.

“Frag­ments from fin­ger corals break off as a re­sult of the heavy pound­ing by the waves at the reef crest. How­ev­er, the frag­ments that break off are usu­al­ly still alive (in this case they main­tain their brown colour). What I saw at the reefs were bleached (white) frag­ments, which are a bit un­usu­al.”

The Saly­bia Bay reef is the on­ly fring­ing reef in T&T.

It ex­tends 200 me­ters par­al­lel to the shore­line and about 1.5 km in length. There you can find large colonies of reef-build­ing fin­ger corals (Porites porites), boul­der star corals, and the oc­ca­sion­al brain coral. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, large beds of brown en­crust­ing zoan­thid (Pa­lythoa spp.) and green mat zoan­thid (Zoan­thus spp.), with pur­ple oc­tocrals in­ter­spersed.

Hope for coral and sea­grass

The coral reef and sea­grass beds that are part of To­ba­go’s ma­rine ecosys­tem have suf­fered degra­da­tion over decades from a com­bi­na­tion of cli­mate change and hu­man im­pact. One of the most no­table ef­fects was the loss of up to 50 per cent of hard coral cov­er due to glob­al bleach­ing in 2010.

Sea­grass beds along the is­land’s south­west coast have not es­caped, fac­ing land-based pol­lu­tion, coastal de­vel­op­ments such as land recla­ma­tion and events such as Sar­gas­sum in­flux.

Of­ten called the rain­forests of the sea, the di­verse ecosys­tems are home to 25 per cent of ma­rine life and are es­sen­tial to many sec­tors, in­clud­ing food pro­duc­tion and tourism. In fact, To­ba­go’s coral reefs sup­port the liveli­hood of the is­land’s fish­er­men and tour op­er­a­tors.

Alex Nedd, founder of Wa­ter­holics, ex­pressed con­cern about the bleach­ing alert. His wa­ter sport busi­ness of­fers ac­tiv­i­ties in­clud­ing jet ski­ing, wake board­ing, wa­ter ski­ing, pad­dle board­ing, dol­phin watch­ing tours and trips to two ma­jor at­trac­tions, Buc­coo Reef and Ny­lon Pool.

“The Buc­coo Reef heav­i­ly con­tributed to To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor,” said Nedd.

“It is the most pop­u­lar glass bot­tom tour on the is­land. Tourists and vis­i­tors love the close dis­tance of the Buc­coo Reef from the shore­line. It takes about 10-15 min­utes to get there. Tour boat op­er­a­tors can make two to three trips dai­ly.”

With cur­rent cli­mate change pro­jec­tions for is­land na­tions, in­clud­ing sea-lev­el rise, an in­crease in ex­treme storms, glob­al warm­ing and ocean acid­i­fi­ca­tion, there is an ur­gent need to boost the re­silience of cru­cial ma­rine ecosys­tems to re­duce their vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty.

The IMA, in part­ner­ship with bpTT, launched the Ma­rine Re­silience Ini­tia­tive (MARIN) To­ba­go last year. The 18-month pi­lot seeks to de­ter­mine ap­pro­pri­ate and fea­si­ble re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion strate­gies for the coral reef and sea­grass beds that sur­round To­ba­go.

“There is an ur­gency to build ca­pac­i­ty with re­spect to coral reef man­age­ment,” ex­plained Dr Ganase.

“Our first restora­tion will take place in 2024. We will be col­lect­ing the sperm and eggs for fer­til­iza­tion. We will feed them on spe­cialised tiles and grow them, then try and out­plant them to in­crease the amount of next gen­er­a­tion.

“This is very im­por­tant in terms of cli­mate change. The out­come is that you will have some species, which will be­come more re­silient to coral bleach­ing.”

As the pi­lot wraps up in Sep­tem­ber, bpTT has com­mit­ted to the main phase ac­cord­ing to Vice Pres­i­dent, Cor­po­rate Op­er­a­tions and Head of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Ad­vo­ca­cy Giselle Thomp­son.

“We are pleased that based on the suc­cess of the pi­lot, we have se­cured fund­ing as the project moves from pi­lot in­to the main phase.

“MARIN will be­come one of the sus­tain­abil­i­ty ini­tia­tives that bp sup­ports at a glob­al lev­el. Among the ben­e­fits will be the op­por­tu­ni­ty to share the learn­ings from MARIN with sim­i­lar projects in oth­er parts of the Caribbean and the world.”

The project aims at build­ing re­silience in coastal ecosys­tems as one of the strate­gies to mit­i­gate cli­mate change.

Record high tem­per­a­tures

Record high air and sea tem­per­a­tures were record­ed in Ju­ly.

On Thurs­day a max­i­mum high tem­per­a­ture of 33.8°C was record­ed at Pi­ar­co, while a max­i­mum high of 31.8°C was record­ed at Crown Point ac­cord­ing to the T&T Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS). Ear­li­er in the month, the Coper­ni­cus Cli­mate Change Ser­vice (C3S) re­port­ed record highs of glob­al air and ocean tem­per­a­tures in Ju­ly.

Glob­al av­er­age sea sur­face tem­per­a­tures con­tin­ued to rise af­ter a long pe­ri­od of un­usu­al­ly high tem­per­a­tures since April 2023, reach­ing record high lev­els in Ju­ly. For the month as a whole, glob­al av­er­age sea sur­face tem­per­a­tures were 0.51°C above the 1991-2020 av­er­age.